True to its word, Valve has released a beta version of SteamOS, the Linux-based operating system that it will use to power its living room Steam Machine consoles. The release coincides with a lucky group of 300 public beta testers who were selected to actually receive Steam Machines to test on—the rest of us can still use the OS, but we'll have to bring our own hardware.

Valve had previously recommended that users who aren't "intrepid Linux hackers" should wait a few more months before trying out SteamOS, but that's not going to stop Ars from barreling head first into the midst of things! We downloaded the OS as quickly as we could after it went live and spent some time getting it whipped into shape on fresh hardware. Contrary to Valve's warning, the install wasn't complex or scary at all—though if you've never installed Linux before, it might take you a bit out of your comfort zone.

Since we didn't receive a Steam Machine to test, we set out to build our own. Our goals were to stick to SteamOS hardware known to be good and to keep the price between $5-600. Andrew Cunningham, Kyle Orland, and I all stuck our heads together and came up with the configuration at right. All items were purchased from NewEgg, and the total prior to shipping was $562.93.

We certainly could have gone much higher if we'd been willing to spend real gaming PC money. However, to keep the price at least marginally competitive with next-gen console offerings, we backed several of the components down. We chose a dual-core Haswell Pentium instead of a more feature-loaded i5, 8GB of RAM instead of 16GB, and a spinny disk over an SSD. Fortunately, all of these components can be upgraded at any point—this is, after all, a PC.

On the other side of the fence, if $600-ish is too high, you could skim some cost off by going with previous-generation or lower-end components at the expense of future expandability. The place with the most "give" is the video card. We stuck with the GTX660 because it's specifically called out in Valve's previously released Steam Machine specs (although we went with the 2GB model instead of 3GB). The types of games that we'll eventually be playing on this thing are, at least for now, well-known titles that have previously been out on other operating systems, so it's easy to target your video card to the type of gaming experience you want to have.

When we were planning the build, we had very little info on exactly what video drivers would be bundled with the SteamOS beta, so sticking with an Nvidia GPU that Valve itself was going to use in real Steam Machines was the safe option. Now that the operating system is out, here are Valve's official hardware requirements, from the SteamOS FAQ:

Intel or AMD 64-bit capable processor

4GB or more memory

500GB or larger disk

NVIDIA graphics card (AMD and Intel graphics support coming soon)

UEFI boot support

USB port for installation

A brief word on the choice of controller

The other big part of the Steam Machine experience that we didn't have access to was the touchpad-equipped Steam Machine Controller. We'll be doing an extensive hands-on with a variety of games once they're available for normal non-Valve, non-beta testers to use, but for now we have to make do with traditional input methods.

For the Ars Steam Machine, we're going with a combination of a USB mouse and keyboard and a wired Xbox 360 controller. The keyboard is necessary to get the operating system installed, though SteamOS is designed to be driven by a gamepad after the install is complete. In my heart, though, I'm a PC gamer—I can't actually play PC games with a controller. Some folks can make that jump, but I've been doing it with a mouse and keyboard for too long to change. So, mouse and keyboard it is.

SteamOS

The SteamOS installer showed up on Valve's servers (ZIP) at about 17:20 CST on December 13, and downloading was a madhouse of slow speeds and rampant disconnects. Fortunately, Bittorrent came to the rescue, and after a while we were able to grab what we needed.

Enlarge/ Downloading the SteamOS installer was a slow process at first, but after an hour or so a number of torrents popped up. They worked admirably.

Lee Hutchinson

SteamOS is a customized Linux distro based not on Ubuntu, as was reported prior to its release, but rather on Debian Wheezy. Valve is maintaining its own SteamOS package repository (and is using these pre-installed packages). For now, the SteamOS beta is using version 3.10.11 of the Linux kernel. Other SteamOS customizations off of Debian include a heavily patched graphics compositor to link together SteamOS, Steam games, and the Steam in-game overlay. The operating system has been configured to pull its updates directly from Valve's repository. It also has a standard Gnome desktop environment hiding out beneath the Steam-y bits, which we'll get to.

If you're one of the 300 actual Steam Machine beta testers, you can report bugs and issues directly to Valve (and, if you're one of the 300 actual Steam Machine beta testers, you already know this). For the rest of us, Valve is hosting a community issue tracker on Github, where users can post issues. Unfortunately, the tracker's README file contains the following dispiriting information about how much of a response those postings will receive:

This issue tracker is meant for community support and requests for improvements; it will not be closely monitored by Valve while the Hardware Beta Test is running.

The installation

There are two different ways to get SteamOS installed on your system, which Valve has helpfully outlined on the "build your own Steam Machine" page. The first is a fully automated method that restores the contents of a 2.7GB disk image onto your computer's hard disk drive. This method is simpler, but requires a much larger download; we skipped it in favor of the alternative.

That alternative, which Valve calls a "custom installation," involves using a UEFI-booting 960MB Debian-based installer to kick off a multi-step script-based process. It requires a bit more work, but it's not terribly daunting. After installing all of the SteamOS packages, this method relies on the user to boot into the OS and trigger scripts to create a restore partition of the completed install; in fact, the 2.7GB fully automated install is so much larger because it already contains the restore partition.

It's worth noting that both methods require you to have a computer that can boot via UEFI. The basis for the requirement isn't exactly clear yet, and at least one enterprising redditor has figured out how to hack around it and make an installer that works with a standard BIOS—though the consequences of actually following those instructions are unknown.

One very important caveat: Both of the official install methods will erase your hard drive. At least for now, there is no way to dual-boot SteamOS or install it on a second hard drive. The installer is a Debian custom unattended install, which includes automatic partitioning of the computer's primary disk and then an automated OS install onto the new partitions. The larger, image-based method partitions the disk and then installs pre-created disk images onto those partitions. At least for now, the only way to get SteamOS onto a computer is to sacrifice that computer to Valve.

The custom install

We decided to try the smaller custom installer first, simply because it was faster to download. Unzipping the custom installer's zip file reveals the Debian installer files. We copied the whole mess onto a fresh FAT32-formatted USB stick and then booted up our test system.

The boot manager presented us with a few options. The instructions recommended picking the "Automated Install" option and so, because this was our first time and we wanted to try to do it right before we started screwing with it, we followed the instructions. We also went back in later and ran through "Expert install" mode; unfortunately, although they give you some more flexibility in what packages are installed, they don't allow you to customize the partition layout (which is what everyone seems to want).

After picking "Automated Install," the installer ran on its merry way and did a bunch of Debian-like things, partitioning our disk and installing its packages without any input from us. Total time for this first portion of the install was just over 19 minutes.

Choosing an install

Lee Hutchinson

Making some partitions...

Lee Hutchinson

Installing some things...

Lee Hutchinson

All done!

Lee Hutchinson

The "Expert install" gives you more options, but doesn't let you fiddle with the partitions.

Lee Hutchinson

Optional software that can be installed.

Lee Hutchinson

On reboot, we were presented with a Debian logon window. The installer creates a pair of users, one privileged and one unprivileged. The instructions at this point said that we needed to log on with the privileged user and start the Steam application for the first time to let it "bootstrap"—that is, let it download and stage the Steam client files needed by SteamOS.

Lee Hutchinson
Lee is the Senior Technology Editor at Ars and oversees gadget, automotive, IT, and culture content. He also knows stuff about enterprise storage, security, and manned space flight. Lee is based in Houston, TX. Emaillee.hutchinson@arstechnica.com//Twitter@Lee_Ars

675,246 676,322 Dota 2 Available on Linux57,543 58,824 Team Fortress 2 Available on Linux49,255 62,707 Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Available on Linux48,966 63,987 Starbound Available on Linux40,399 46,629 Football Manager 2014 Available on Linux37,347 40,563 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim34,683 43,046 Sid Meier's Civilization V29,566 37,126 Counter-Strike Available on Linux22,851 26,945 Counter-Strike: Source Available on Linux21,809 29,880 Garry's Mod Available on Linux

Also in stats: about 80% (give or take) of all players on Steam are running some form of Windows OS, which means they already have functional gaming PC. Do they need another gaming PC that offers less functionality? Ok, then the living room - most people have a PlayStation or Xbox for that, and these devices do a lot more than let you play some Linux games. So apart from enthusiasts, who is Valve making this for?

(I don't have a problem with someone making a new console at all, but this sounds like a major waste of effort of a large group of smart people that are Valve.)

That's going to depend on how well the streaming works. I'd love to build a low end PC to stick in the living room. Something that can run lower spec games to play/take turns with friends (think Castle Crashers, Gunpoint, Pac-Man CEDX, etc), but the bonus of streaming non-Linux games from the "big boy" PC, if it works well, will push me over the edge.

That's going to depend on how well the streaming works. I'd love to build a low end PC to stick in the living room. Something that can run lower spec games to play/take turns with friends (think Castle Crashers, Gunpoint, Pac-Man CEDX, etc), but the bonus of streaming non-Linux games from the "big boy" PC, if it works well, will push me over the edge.

I don't see streaming as really mattering much. People were initially gushing over the NVidia Shield because of game streaming, after it's release, almost no one seemed to care about Shield.

At best this is another fringe use that really has no effect on market size.

...(I don't have a problem with someone making a new console at all, but this sounds like a major waste of effort of a large group of smart people that are Valve.)

I think this is pretty clearly the early stages of a long-term strategy. We know Valve is unhappy with the future of Windows as a gaming platform, and the console platforms have their own problems for a company like Valve (Steam).

What fills this project with prospects of awesome is the creation of a gaming (and computing) platform based on open standards and systems. If this gains traction, everybody wins except companies that want to lock users into walled gardens and ecosystems. That may seem contradictory to the Steam distribution system, but remember this is built on a complete Linux distro. Non-Steam anything should still be possible. If this takes off as a platform, I can even imagine Valve withdrawing to only maintaining the Steam-specific parts of this, and let the now more more public and mature Linux platform take care of itself. In other words, this could finally move an open computing platform (Linux) into the mainstream, as an alternative to all the consoles, Windows and Mac.

I'm not claiming this will be the year of Linux on the desktop or anything. I think this is a multi-year strategy that could result in Linux going mainstream. Maybe there will even be a Google Drive client for Linux. OK, that's just crazy talk.

No VM will expose your video card as a Nvidia card (or AMD or intel), so I would guess no.

However, the day this thing learns how to dual-boot will be the day Windows becomes completely optional.

Sure it will, with GPU-passthrough. I'm running Xen with two GPUs (onboard Intel integrated for host Linux server, Nvidia GPU for a guest). I run a media server but wanted to use the system for gaming. It works, but it's difficult to set up as not a lot of easy documentation exists on this setup. Your hardware also needs to allow VT-d (CPU and Motherboard) and the GPU you want to passthrough must support it as well. VT-d is what Intel calls their passthrough instruction set, not sure what AMD calls it, but both use IOMMU.

I run Windows 7 in a VM and gaming works pretty good. I'll be installing this into another VM on my Linux Xen server (Fedora 19) to test it out. We'll see what happens. I wouldn't expect any major issues since SteamOS should be able to see the GPU just fine.

KVM supports it as well as long as you're running QEMU 1.5 or higher. VirtualBox supports GPU passthrough in an experimental state, but I never had any luck getting it to work.

So much for not building another PC. Was hoping to dual-boot, but you guys rightly outlined my fears. Any word on if the OEM Steambox chassis will be available without internals (or only with the accompanying mobo)?

Nobody's guaranteeing that Steam will run fine on non-Ubuntu OS. If you want to run it on Mint, then it's not Valve's problems any more.

edit: maybe it makes sense to post your problems/comments on one of those mint forums?

None of the problems he mentions are particular to Steam but to gaming in general.

Also since SteamOS itself runs on Debian and not Ubuntu, I'd say it's somewhat safe to assume that it'll work on Debian based distributions in general

But I think it's fair to assume that Valve is going to figure out the window compositor mess for SteamOS - I'm really surprised how bad the situation seems to be there at the moment (what the hell is the window compositor doing when having a fullscreen window open?!)

What fills this project with prospects of awesome is the creation of a gaming (and computing) platform based on open standards and systems. If this gains traction, everybody wins except companies that want to lock users into walled gardens and ecosystems.

Hate to be a Debbie downer but really this is a lot of preaching to the choir. Those that don't attend that church probably see Windows as a technology enabler, and Steam as the DRM for PC games.

What fills this project with prospects of awesome is the creation of a gaming (and computing) platform based on open standards and systems. If this gains traction, everybody wins except companies that want to lock users into walled gardens and ecosystems.

Hate to be a Debbie downer but really this is a lot of preaching to the choir. Those that don't attend that church probably see Windows as a technology enabler, and Steam as the DRM for PC games.

I know the installation process isn't intended for regular users who'll just buy a Steam Machine directly, but other than the initial screen it's pretty damned ugly, why not use some of the regular SteamOS UI styling?

... the issue with logging in with the wrong session is another fine example; why even that option initially, why not make it a power user option that needs to be enabled or requires a key to be held down or such?

Nobody's guaranteeing that Steam will run fine on non-Ubuntu OS. If you want to run it on Mint, then it's not Valve's problems any more.

edit: maybe it makes sense to post your problems/comments on one of those mint forums?

None of the problems he mentions are particular to Steam but to gaming in general.

Also since SteamOS itself runs on Debian and not Ubuntu, I'd say it's somewhat safe to assume that it'll work on Debian based distributions in general

But I think it's fair to assume that Valve is going to figure out the window compositor mess for SteamOS - I'm really surprised how bad the situation seems to be there at the moment (what the hell is the window compositor doing when having a fullscreen window open?!)

1. nouveau problems for SLI setup. 2. Mint metapackages. 3. Mint's Cinnamon problems with the compositor. This is very Mint specific. Compiz and kwin do not interfere with games in full screen mode. This has been baked inside them, so the user doesn't have to do anything to make sure that games run okay, i.e., there is no real performance decrease when running games under compiz or kwin. There was, but not any more.

So, yeah, 2 and 3 are Mint problems. Only the first problem is somewhat more general, but you cannot expect the nouveau devs to solve all of your problems. Some of them are university students doing this for fun and because they can. I really don't know what people are expecting from such a project. It's for fun. It's not to replace, or act as a serious replacement for the nvidia drivers.

3. Mint's Cinnamon problems with the compositor. This is very Mint specific. Compiz and kwin do not interfere with games in full screen mode. This has been baked inside them, so the user doesn't have to do anything to make sure that games run okay, i.e., there is no real performance decrease when running games under compiz or kwin. There was, but not any more.

More like a sporadic Gnome 3 problem. Cinnamon uses a fork of Mutter, the default Gnome 3 compositor. Unredirect is probably in about the same state as it was at the time of the split; it could be that even the proper Gnome version of Mutter still has this issue. Notice that SteamOS isn't using Mutter either. And at least according to this Phoronix thread, all the major DE compositors sometimes have trouble automatically detecting how to handle full-screen games.

I haven't had time to play with this yet, but a thought about dual-booting:

1) Install Windows to it's own drive (or use existing drive)2) Unplug it from the MB, plug in new drive3) Install SteamOS to the point where it's done and you can boot into it4) Shut system down and reconnect Windows drive5) Start PC checking bios to ensure the drive with SteamOS is the first boot device

Note: At this point, when booting, Windows will not be visible on the grub boot menu

6) Boot into SteamOS7) Open a console and run: sudo update-grub (grub should find the Windows drive and set the boot menu accordingly)8) Reboot.

As I said, I haven't had time to mess with this yet, but the above should get dual-boot working... On a side note, when needing/wanting to format and re-install Windows, do a similar process. Unplug the SteamOS drive, format/reinstall Windows, reconnect SteamOS drive. Doing this ensures Windows doesn't kill grub.

No VM will expose your video card as a Nvidia card (or AMD or intel), so I would guess no.

However, the day this thing learns how to dual-boot will be the day Windows becomes completely optional.

Sure it will, with GPU-passthrough.

... which as far as I know is only supported on Workstation cards by Nvidia, so not going to help much in this particular situation.

A lot of the more recent (as in 400 line and higher) GeForce cards have the MultiOS functionality that is also present on the Quadro line, and there are a few success stories using those but I haven't actually done it myself (Quadro card here).

Don't know about AMD but from what I have read, it seems to have a higher success rate, but again I haven't done it with AMD cards.

edit: I should emphasize the "a lot" above a little bit, as it's typically only on the higher end cards. This link details that it is only on Quadro cards, but there are success stories using something like a 680 or 780 in discussion in this thread that could prove useful.

I haven't had time to play with this yet, but a thought about dual-booting:

1) Install Windows to it's own drive (or use existing drive)2) Unplug it from the MB, plug in new drive3) Install SteamOS to the point where it's done and you can boot into it4) Shut system down and reconnect Windows drive5) Start PC checking bios to ensure the drive with SteamOS is the first boot device

Note: At this point, when booting, Windows will not be visible on the grub boot menu

6) Boot into SteamOS7) Open a console and run: sudo update-grub (grub should find the Windows drive and set the boot menu accordingly)8) Reboot.

As I said, I haven't had time to mess with this yet, but the above should get dual-boot working... On a side note, when needing/wanting to format and re-install Windows, do a similar process. Unplug the SteamOS drive, format/reinstall Windows, reconnect SteamOS drive. Doing this ensures Windows doesn't kill grub.

I'll be putting together a video from the steamos install process a little later today, and I also happen to have a spare hard drive lying around. I'll give this a shot and see what happens, and if it works, I'll make sure to write it up & give you credit!

I think this is pretty clearly the early stages of a long-term strategy. We know Valve is unhappy with the future of Windows as a gaming platform, and the console platforms have their own problems for a company like Valve (Steam).

What fills this project with prospects of awesome is the creation of a gaming (and computing) platform based on open standards and systems. If this gains traction, everybody wins except companies that want to lock users into walled gardens and ecosystems.

I'm pretty excited about this SteamOS/Steam Machine, and this comment nicely articulates why. I really like the way that Valve is approaching this - letting the beta console out to the public, and letting us see it evolve. I'm currently torn between waiting for a VM-friendly version of SteamOS, or persuading my fiancée to let me spend $600... I will be getting a controller once they're available.

At the very least, if Valve can get enough traction, having a credible living room alternative to PS4/Xbone may also keep Sony/MS on their toes, and may indirectly benefit users of those consoles too.

Too early to predict what will happen now, but as a gamer, I like having a choice of platforms - the more choice the better...

I haven't had time to play with this yet, but a thought about dual-booting:

1) Install Windows to it's own drive (or use existing drive)2) Unplug it from the MB, plug in new drive3) Install SteamOS to the point where it's done and you can boot into it4) Shut system down and reconnect Windows drive5) Start PC checking bios to ensure the drive with SteamOS is the first boot device

Note: At this point, when booting, Windows will not be visible on the grub boot menu

6) Boot into SteamOS7) Open a console and run: sudo update-grub (grub should find the Windows drive and set the boot menu accordingly)8) Reboot.

As I said, I haven't had time to mess with this yet, but the above should get dual-boot working... On a side note, when needing/wanting to format and re-install Windows, do a similar process. Unplug the SteamOS drive, format/reinstall Windows, reconnect SteamOS drive. Doing this ensures Windows doesn't kill grub.

I'll be putting together a video from the steamos install process a little later today, and I also happen to have a spare hard drive lying around. I'll give this a shot and see what happens, and if it works, I'll make sure to write it up & give you credit!

Thanks. Credit's not really necessary though... I may give this a go myself over the weekend and make sure what I wrote works! It should though.... I do the same with my current setup. I'm out of drives though and my /home is on a seperate partition that usually makes reinstalling painless, but will have to be backed up .... somewhere... It would have been nice to be able to specify custom partitions/sizes, but I guess that will come in time.

I haven't had time to play with this yet, but a thought about dual-booting:

1) Install Windows to it's own drive (or use existing drive)2) Unplug it from the MB, plug in new drive3) Install SteamOS to the point where it's done and you can boot into it4) Shut system down and reconnect Windows drive5) Start PC checking bios to ensure the drive with SteamOS is the first boot device

Note: At this point, when booting, Windows will not be visible on the grub boot menu

6) Boot into SteamOS7) Open a console and run: sudo update-grub (grub should find the Windows drive and set the boot menu accordingly)8) Reboot.

As I said, I haven't had time to mess with this yet, but the above should get dual-boot working... On a side note, when needing/wanting to format and re-install Windows, do a similar process. Unplug the SteamOS drive, format/reinstall Windows, reconnect SteamOS drive. Doing this ensures Windows doesn't kill grub.

I'll be putting together a video from the steamos install process a little later today, and I also happen to have a spare hard drive lying around. I'll give this a shot and see what happens, and if it works, I'll make sure to write it up & give you credit!

Thanks. Credit's not really necessary though... I may give this a go myself over the weekend and make sure what I wrote works! It should though.... I do the same with my current setup. I'm out of drives though and my /home is on a seperate partition that usually makes reinstalling painless, but will have to be backed up .... somewhere... It would have been nice to be able to specify custom partitions/sizes, but I guess that will come in time.

Ought to work and you really don't have to reinstall Windows to fix the MBR. Just use the windows DVD, then click "repair windows" or something, then start the commandline and use "bootrec /fixmbr" "bootrec /fixboot". That should generally work.

Still annoying having to do this juggling (and if you're not careful you end up with the fun Grub Error 5, who hasn't seen that at least once?)

I haven't had time to play with this yet, but a thought about dual-booting:

1) Install Windows to it's own drive (or use existing drive)2) Unplug it from the MB, plug in new drive3) Install SteamOS to the point where it's done and you can boot into it4) Shut system down and reconnect Windows drive5) Start PC checking bios to ensure the drive with SteamOS is the first boot device

Note: At this point, when booting, Windows will not be visible on the grub boot menu

6) Boot into SteamOS7) Open a console and run: sudo update-grub (grub should find the Windows drive and set the boot menu accordingly)8) Reboot.

As I said, I haven't had time to mess with this yet, but the above should get dual-boot working... On a side note, when needing/wanting to format and re-install Windows, do a similar process. Unplug the SteamOS drive, format/reinstall Windows, reconnect SteamOS drive. Doing this ensures Windows doesn't kill grub.

I'll be putting together a video from the steamos install process a little later today, and I also happen to have a spare hard drive lying around. I'll give this a shot and see what happens, and if it works, I'll make sure to write it up & give you credit!

Thanks. Credit's not really necessary though... I may give this a go myself over the weekend and make sure what I wrote works! It should though.... I do the same with my current setup. I'm out of drives though and my /home is on a seperate partition that usually makes reinstalling painless, but will have to be backed up .... somewhere... It would have been nice to be able to specify custom partitions/sizes, but I guess that will come in time.

Ought to work and you really don't have to reinstall Windows to fix the MBR. Just use the windows DVD, then click "repair windows" or something, then start the commandline and use "bootrec /fixmbr" "bootrec /fixboot". That should generally work.

Still annoying having to do this juggling (and if you're not careful you end up with the fun Grub Error 5, who hasn't seen that at least once?)

Agreed, but I didn't mean to imply that the Windows reinstall was to fix the MBR, just for general Windows reinstalls in general. I usually keep Windows on a drive all by itself, all my programs on a drive by themselves, and Linux on a drive by itself. This makes those times that Windows pisses me off and I format and reinstall go smoother

Is there any advantage to installing and using SteamOS versus just running the linux build of Steam on a regular linux box? Because from what I can see, for folks wanting to use their own hardware, SteamOS is more is a hassle than it's worth. Now for pre built boxes, SteamOS makes sense as it enables an out of the box experience.

It seems that there are a lot of people judging this comparing it to A) Current Windows gaming PCs, B) Current gaming consoles, and C) Running steam client on existing Linux

Yes, compared to any of those, in its current state, it's a terrible choice. But we're talking about an OS that isn't even actually released yet. It's been in public beta for 18 hours, and it was explicitly stated its not ready for prime time.

I don't understand why people have the desire to publicly declare it being a waste or failure because in its current form, today, they won't use it. That's cool. Don't use it. No one is asking you to, really. People trying to find the target market, but not allowing for the idea that is market might not exactly exist yet. High-end, customizable, upgradable consoles.

Kind of reminds me of when iPad was released, or how I felt about text messaging when it was new.

No VM will expose your video card as a Nvidia card (or AMD or intel), so I would guess no.

However, the day this thing learns how to dual-boot will be the day Windows becomes completely optional.

It does work with VirtualBox without passtrough, but you need to compile the guest additions drivers and tolerate a low 5fps performance inside steam big picture. Also, since the install comes without any compatible driver, you must switch to a virtual terminal to do anything, or else you will be stuck in a blank screen. I posted some screenshots in the previous article, but here they are again:

...What fills this project with prospects of awesome is the creation of a gaming (and computing) platform based on open standards and systems. If this gains traction, everybody wins except companies that want to lock users into walled gardens and ecosystems.

Steam is a walled garden.

If anything it's closer to the original Xbox one vision that was so hated by gamers everywhere (except lacking all the game sharing functionality that had). It's genuinely puzzling why anyone who was b*tching about that seems fine with this, other than the rather childish "Microsoft is evil" argument of course.

That PSU seems a bit weak. Sure, it will provide enough power to the system to run it. However, it's going to generate a lot of waste heat at peak use. It would be better to opt for a PSU that's 50%-100% more than the peak load so power draw lands between 50% and 75% load where most PSU's are the most efficient.

vs steam on an existing Linux distribution? Nothing massive as yet but then no obvious drawback either. (Unless you hate gnome 3 and can't change desktop.).

Going forwards, if gaming matters, then definitely. For starters everything is going to be tested on this specific set up so less risk of accidents. That might become very relevant in relation to wine - if this takes off then you can definitely imagine someone like GoG targetting it.(Or at worst something like the play on linux installers but working better.).

Also have to imagine they'll be very careful to keep the various GPU drivers up to date/working as a priority. The controller too I suppose.

...What fills this project with prospects of awesome is the creation of a gaming (and computing) platform based on open standards and systems. If this gains traction, everybody wins except companies that want to lock users into walled gardens and ecosystems.

Steam is a walled garden.

If anything it's closer to the original Xbox one vision that was so hated by gamers everywhere (except lacking all the game sharing functionality that had). It's genuinely puzzling why anyone who was b*tching about that seems fine with this, other than the rather childish "Microsoft is evil" argument of course.

Because people have already chosen sides. I didn't think the xbox one drm scheme was terrible, but many people bought consoles specifically because they don't have to be online, people in the military esp. who seem to be especially avid xbox gamers in my experience. Plus, store owners who want to sell used gamers at big markups and frequent these blogs - they've never made money on used steam games, after all. Finally add in negativity around eliminating indie games (at the time) and the price.

Now consider a direct competitor that wasn't making those changes (sony), plus the game sharing feature was suggested after the backlash and wasn't considered at first (really, they forgot to mention a key income-eroding feature to CEOs and devs?) and you can see why there was such a backlash, even if it seems silly on a global level where everything is just steam eventually anyway.

Anyway, that's pretty much beside the point, isn't it? Steam OS is coming. I'll probably build my second pc next Christmas just for this. Can't wait to try the new controller design. I'm currently an xbox and Windows 8 customer, but it's not like Microsoft is clearly superior at everything and every criticism is part of some conspiracy. Steam doesn't charge membership fees, after all, and a lot of us already use Linux. Diversity is a good thing.

So much for not building another PC. Was hoping to dual-boot, but you guys rightly outlined my fears. Any word on if the OEM Steambox chassis will be available without internals (or only with the accompanying mobo)?

Little chance, I think. It's not sold by Valve, it's going to be sold by the "gaming" OEMs (Alienware, Falcon NW, etc.) and why would they want to compete with homebuilt PCs? Could be wrong, but I imagine they wouldn't want to cannibalize their premium market.

If anything it's closer to the original Xbox one vision that was so hated by gamers everywhere (except lacking all the game sharing functionality that had). It's genuinely puzzling why anyone who was b*tching about that seems fine with this, other than the rather childish "Microsoft is evil" argument of course.

Or we'd rather have our physical media purchase treated the way it's been treated forever, and let the digital distribution alternative exist on its own merits. Maybe some people do enjoy playing their games without a persistent internet connection, too.

"Everything you need to know to install SteamOS on your very own computer"

Step 1: Get a life.

I know I will get voted into oblivion for *daring* to suggest this is a waste of time, but it's a waste of time. I can't even imagine a use-case where I would want to install an entirely new OS on my machine so that I can play a small subset of the games I already have so I can imagine what it might be like to have that OS/game playing on my television after I spend even more money, even though the television is the absolute last place I'd ever want to play a Steam game.

So you don't see any use case for what is basically a new console with many of the advantages of PC gaming? You don't see the advantage of trying out the OS before pulling the trigger and buying a dedicated machine? You don't see why people might want to play games on a TV instead of at their desk?

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And meanwhile, where the heck is the iOS version of Steam?

Would Apple's mobile platform, with all its artificial technical and policy limitations, even allow for something like Steam?